5 Advices by Indian Entrepreneurs on Scaling up

Starting up a venture is probably the easiest part of the entrepreneurial odyssey that you have chosen to undertake. Conceiving an idea, developing a product and launching it in the market is an exciting fun play. But the real game only begins with the initiation of the process of scaling up i.e, systematically accelerating the growth of your enterprise with a confidence that the resources you have put in will yield measurable results. However, many a time, even the sincerest of efforts go futile, thereby putting your expectation to ruin. Nevertheless, you can always slim the chances of failures by learning from the experiences of your predecessors. So, here are 5 entrepreneurs, each sharing a piece of advice on scaling up, drawing from their own entrepreneurial journeys. Take a read-

Naveen Tewari, Founder and CEO, InMobi

Adding his inputs on the subject, Tewari maintained, “I would like to quote Mark Watney from the movie Martian to answer this question as this is the most simple and powerful way to put my message across-

“At some point, everything’s gonna go south on you and you’re going to say, this is it. This is how I end. Now you can either accept that, or you can get to work. That’s all it is. You just begin. You do the math. You solve one problem and you solve the next one, and then the next. And if you solve enough problems, you get to come home”.

So, basically it is all about grit and perseverance. Just stay on it. And don’t give up.”

Amit Jain, Founder & CEO, CarDekho

Amit throws light on the positive facets of unsuccessful attempts. He says, “before CarDekho, I started multiple portals, which failed to make the impact that I wanted to create. With each and every failure, I learnt ‘how not to fail,’ and found new ways to improve user experience. The main challenge and opportunity for CarDekho is to build consumer trust, as buying a car is one of the expensive purchase decisions. So giving consumers comfort that the tools, information, and listings provide fair and objective advice helps in bringing many more car buyers online. Today, CarDekho is drawing close to 33 million visits per month and is among the heavily funded startups. The “never give up” spirit helped me leave no stone unturned.”

Suchi Mukherjee, Founder & CEO, Limeroad

Mukherjee lays impetus on the fundamentals. She says, “you need to start off with basics and device a plan to deal with teething issues. To begin with at the very start, finding great people for the team: the combination of skill and real can-do can be hard. Next on cards is dealing with people. A happy team is the most productive team, people have adult modes and child-like modes. Spotting those modes, learning to deal with them, I think is imperative for anyone aiming at scaling the business. Prioritizing your efforts to build a trustworthy and conducive relationship with your investors. This is a journey which has to be embarked upon with mutual understanding and agreed objectives”.

Shashank ND, Founder & CEO, Practo

Shashank is of the opinion that the foundation of every startup should be the vision to solve an existing problem in a specific industry. He says, “the problem arises, when founders lose focus of that vision. Another problem is that some entrepreneurs fail to pay heed to the importance of hiring good talent and employees who share the same level of enthusiasm in taking the company to the next level. Fund raising is something that will follow if the product is good and the customer base is loyal and content with the product offerings. The ultimate aim should never be to make money, but to solve problems, build great products and follow a remarkable culture within the organisation”.

Sameer Parwani, Founder and CEO, CouponDunia

And last but not the least, Sameer Parwani reasserting the importance of hiring the right talent states, “don’t take shortcuts when it comes to hiring. It will bite you later. Make sure all your managers have the same hiring criteria that you do”.